And now, just in time for Opening Day, I’m happy to add even more home-run news for 2011.

The first morsel of gluten-free goodness is for anyone in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tropicana Field, home of the Rays, is now also home of GF! Gluten-Free Ballpark Favorites. As you might be able to guess from the name, the concession stand is offering, “gluten-free versions of traditional ballpark favorites like hot dogs, pretzels, and beer.”

Batter up!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun. Anyway. The other baseball news comes from Busch Stadium, where the Cardinals play in St. Louis, Missouri. The stadium is adding “a farmers market-style stand…to offer several gluten-free options, including garden and chef salads, yogurt and fruit.”

What’s especially noteworthy is that these two stadiums are fed by two completely different catering concerns (neither of which is ARAMARK, who were the impetus behind last season’s increase gluten-free beer).

Although the new news is only affecting these two stadiums now, each concern – Centerplate in Florida and Delaware North Sportservice in Missouri – is responsible for many more facilities. Chef Norman Taylor Jr., of Sportservice, made a point of noting that demand for gluten-free food is spiking in all of their 10 stadiums.

It’ll be worth monitoring Busch Stadium, who could potentially face cross-contamination concerns given that the stand will also sell gluten-full snacks. If they can pull it off, it might be a great model to roll out to more stadiums across the country; after all, not every stadium necessarily has the demand that Tropicana Field is banking on to be able to support a fully gluten-free stand.

If you’re in the St. Louis or St. Petersburg areas to take in a game – let us know how the snacks are! If you’re watching elsewhere, what sort of gluten-free options does your local baseball stadium have? Do you trust them / feel safe eating it?

I am happy to announce that Nationals Park, home of the Washington Nationals, has an entire gluten free kiosk in section 135 with offerings like GF mac and cheese, GF hot dogs, GF beer, and a number of GF snack bars. Let’s Go Nats!

Citizens Bank Park also has gluten free BBQ, hot dogs (with bun) and gluten free beer. It takes a little time to locate all of the different items since they are not located conveniently at one stand, but totally worth it!

I was at Tropicana Field last night. Their stand did not include gluten free pretzels like the press release stated, instead they had gluten free bars. They had a selection of three gluten free beers [although one was a malt beverage, and I thought malt contained gluten].

We went to a baseball game at Tropicana last week and were excited to visit the Gluten Free Favorites stand. We were disappointed, as all they had were a gluten free sauce, hotdog (with gf buns), one kind of gf beer, and two kinds of ciders. Fine, but we figured they would at least have peanuts, popcorn, chips, etc.–foods that are already gluten free. Weird.

Wrigley Field also has several Gluten Free items and stands throughout the field. Although they are not listed on their website, I was there over the weekend with my daughter. There were signs that indicated GF next to items at certain stands. Also the Shefield Grill in right field had hotdogs, hamburgers, and bison burgers made to order on GF buns! They were very knowledgable and made sure to not cross contaminate any of the food. They even substituted kettle chips for fries. I was also offered packets of condiments so as not to use the condiments other patrons were using.

My local Dodger stadium doesn’t have any gluten free foods that i can remember. At least not marked as GF (you can aways eat popcorn:) but next week i’ll look out for GF foods when we go see the Angels. God, I love Family Trip Day!!

On a recent vacation to Chicago, I planned ahead and researched US Cellular Field (home to White Sox). I was excited to find out they had GF foods. Unfortunately, I left the list of concession stand locations in our hotel room, so had to do some asking around. Despite several wrong directions to stands that did not have GF (and nothing was marked GF at ANY stand, so it made it hard) I finally located the Guest Services people who told me which stands had GF food & beer. THEN the workers didn’t even know they had GF until I insisted and they asked around. The options then were a hotdog on a stale GF bun or a corned beef or turkey sandwich on stale GF bread! I ended up using the lettuce from my sandwich to make a corned beef lettuce wrap! Allegedly the South of the Border stand had GF options but after witnessing the ingredients flying, I didn’t feel safe eating from there. Don’t get me wrong – I’m grateful that ballparks are trying to give us options, I just think they have a way to go, at least at Cellular Field. Maybe I was expecting too much…I still remember yummy ballpark hot dogs from my pre-GF days! Next time I will bring my own GF bread & bun & just get the hot dog to put on it, or eat before I go. One more thing: I thought $7.00 was a bit steep for a 12 oz bottle of GF beer! But again, I’m grateful to have the option….